As a female scientist I have been taught, implicitly, that my opinions matter less because I am a female and females are worse at science and math than their male counterparts. This is still something that I struggle with even though I have several female friends who are successful scientists and by many standards I, myself, am successful. My teaching philosophy is that all students are capable and deserving of the opportunity to learn, I can and should learn from my students and value them as people so my students learn how to value diversity, I should model how to be respectful, caring, and kind so that my students learn how to be respectful and compassionate, and I want all students to enjoy and appreciate learning.
I want to communicate to my students that all opinions matter and anyone can be a great scientist or mathematician. You are not limited by your gender, or skin-color, or your uniqueness – in fact, these things make your input more meaningful because you have a different perspective from those around you! This has greatly influenced my teaching philosophy. High school is a pivotal time in a child’s life and I plan to take advantage of my influence by building meaningful relationships with my students and teaching them that they can learn and they are worthy.
I want my students to learn to be productive, kind, caring, and respectful citizens who meaningfully contribute to society. I will foster this by treating my students with respect and expecting them to treat me and their classmates with respect. I will utilize cooperative group learning, in hopes that students learn how to communicate, how to work as a team to solve problems and think critically, how to work toward a common goal, how to make decisions as a group, how to resolve disagreements peacefully, and how to delegate. Teenagers are learning about the world while greatly valuing the opinions and perspectives of their peers, all while they are discovering their own values and opinions. That is why it is essential that I explicitly and implicitly communicate how important their voice is, especially when it is usually heard as part of a chorus of their peers’ voices. If students feel like their opinions matter, they are more likely to feel empowered to make decisions and insight change. This is a necessary skill for contributing members of society.
I want my students to be curious about the world around them and think critically about solutions to seemingly impossible problems or situations. This will help them be more empathetic, and it will help them to expand their thinking to problems beyond themselves. Critical thinking is a powerful tool for anyone, but is especially important to scientists. The Next Generation Science Standards will help me teach critical thinking skills to my students because it is an integral part of the standards. The NGSS also fosters curiosity because it focuses on teaching from phenomena, which a great way to get students to wonder about the world around them.
I want my students to love learning. Not just learning about science, but anything – even challenging concepts. I will do this by creating an environment of “growth mindset.” This means that when my students struggle with a concept or a problem I will teach them that there is no failure, there is only “not yet.” All failure is simply an opportunity to learn something new. When they do not understand something I will not tell them that they got it wrong, I will instead tell them that they just have not learned this yet. Additionally, students will be taught to not say, "I don't know" when asked a challenging questions. Instead, students will be taught questioning techniques to help them evaluate what they know and how else they can look at the problem or which resources they can turn to so they can solve it.
I want my students to value diversity. Good citizens value diversity, which is essential to a building a safe learning environment and a classroom community. Diversity could be gender, religion, physical ability, personality traits, learning styles, learning strengths, and interests. Diversity provides different perspectives that can be invaluable resources for learning and creating, which are goals of every classroom and community. I want my students to feel safe, respected, and valued within my classroom so they can share their possibly differing opinions/perspectives. I will do this by establishing an environment of acceptance that encourages participation. This will be reflected in how I treat my students and the rules of my classroom. I will treat my students like responsible, adult scientists. I will explicitly communicate to them that I expect them to treat me and their classmates with the same respect and understanding. Science is an inquiry based subject so it is important that my students can feel like they can ask any question. Scientists have often been the person who questioned what was presented as fact and they were thought to be crazy or misguided. For that reason, a safe learning environment is not just necessary, but essential to a science classroom.
The first step to my goals is to get to know my students personally. I want to see them as whole people and I want them to see me as a whole person. I will create and use activities so I, and their classmates, can learn about them and they can learn about me. It is important for students to see their teachers as real people and role models in the classroom so they feel comfortable enough to come to be for questions, help, and support for academic and personal matters. This will also help me personalize learning, build relationships, and create a class community where diversity is respected and valued.
The safe learning environment is meant to lay the foundation to an inquiry based, student-centered classroom. I want my students to learn to ask meaningful questions about the world around them. I also want them to value their own ideas and opinions as well as the perspectives of their peers. I will do this by allowing my students to make decisions about their learning (topics discussed) and the type of assignments and assessments that they want to do so students have some autonomy. Autonomy gives students some responsibility and ownership in their learning which will improve their engagement and make learning more meaningful. I will also model how to ask meaningful questions by presenting essential questions and then ask them to reflect on their own opinions and then share their opinions with their peers.
My assignment policy will reflect my growth mindset atmosphere. Students will be able to revise assignments and assessments to their satisfaction. This will help them realize that they can always learn. By taking failure out of the equation students will not become as frustrated or disappointed when they struggle. If they preserve instead of shutting down they will experience the euphoria of understanding and learning challenging concepts, which is the intrinsic reward that will fuel their motivation to learn. This will build their self-confidence and resilience, which will power them to become life-long learners.
In conclusion, my guiding goals are to treat all students like the worthy, capable learners they are and to help students become respectful citizens within a community. I will achieve these goals through several means. One way is by getting to know my students as people and creating a safe learning environment that will promote self-confidence and engagement. This will be supported by my use of growth mindset, which will also increase self-confidence, learning, and achievement. I will also utilize cooperative group learning to foster interpersonal relationships. Even though cooperative group learning is important, it will not be my only teaching strategy. I will also allow for student autonomy through individualized, inquiry based learning and options in how student learning can be shown. This will help students to foster their own interests which will make learning more meaningful and interesting. Lastly, my classroom management style will be mostly humanitarian and will allow students to revise their work. This will teach students that failure is not a label, but an opportunity to learn and improve.
I want to communicate to my students that all opinions matter and anyone can be a great scientist or mathematician. You are not limited by your gender, or skin-color, or your uniqueness – in fact, these things make your input more meaningful because you have a different perspective from those around you! This has greatly influenced my teaching philosophy. High school is a pivotal time in a child’s life and I plan to take advantage of my influence by building meaningful relationships with my students and teaching them that they can learn and they are worthy.
I want my students to learn to be productive, kind, caring, and respectful citizens who meaningfully contribute to society. I will foster this by treating my students with respect and expecting them to treat me and their classmates with respect. I will utilize cooperative group learning, in hopes that students learn how to communicate, how to work as a team to solve problems and think critically, how to work toward a common goal, how to make decisions as a group, how to resolve disagreements peacefully, and how to delegate. Teenagers are learning about the world while greatly valuing the opinions and perspectives of their peers, all while they are discovering their own values and opinions. That is why it is essential that I explicitly and implicitly communicate how important their voice is, especially when it is usually heard as part of a chorus of their peers’ voices. If students feel like their opinions matter, they are more likely to feel empowered to make decisions and insight change. This is a necessary skill for contributing members of society.
I want my students to be curious about the world around them and think critically about solutions to seemingly impossible problems or situations. This will help them be more empathetic, and it will help them to expand their thinking to problems beyond themselves. Critical thinking is a powerful tool for anyone, but is especially important to scientists. The Next Generation Science Standards will help me teach critical thinking skills to my students because it is an integral part of the standards. The NGSS also fosters curiosity because it focuses on teaching from phenomena, which a great way to get students to wonder about the world around them.
I want my students to love learning. Not just learning about science, but anything – even challenging concepts. I will do this by creating an environment of “growth mindset.” This means that when my students struggle with a concept or a problem I will teach them that there is no failure, there is only “not yet.” All failure is simply an opportunity to learn something new. When they do not understand something I will not tell them that they got it wrong, I will instead tell them that they just have not learned this yet. Additionally, students will be taught to not say, "I don't know" when asked a challenging questions. Instead, students will be taught questioning techniques to help them evaluate what they know and how else they can look at the problem or which resources they can turn to so they can solve it.
I want my students to value diversity. Good citizens value diversity, which is essential to a building a safe learning environment and a classroom community. Diversity could be gender, religion, physical ability, personality traits, learning styles, learning strengths, and interests. Diversity provides different perspectives that can be invaluable resources for learning and creating, which are goals of every classroom and community. I want my students to feel safe, respected, and valued within my classroom so they can share their possibly differing opinions/perspectives. I will do this by establishing an environment of acceptance that encourages participation. This will be reflected in how I treat my students and the rules of my classroom. I will treat my students like responsible, adult scientists. I will explicitly communicate to them that I expect them to treat me and their classmates with the same respect and understanding. Science is an inquiry based subject so it is important that my students can feel like they can ask any question. Scientists have often been the person who questioned what was presented as fact and they were thought to be crazy or misguided. For that reason, a safe learning environment is not just necessary, but essential to a science classroom.
The first step to my goals is to get to know my students personally. I want to see them as whole people and I want them to see me as a whole person. I will create and use activities so I, and their classmates, can learn about them and they can learn about me. It is important for students to see their teachers as real people and role models in the classroom so they feel comfortable enough to come to be for questions, help, and support for academic and personal matters. This will also help me personalize learning, build relationships, and create a class community where diversity is respected and valued.
The safe learning environment is meant to lay the foundation to an inquiry based, student-centered classroom. I want my students to learn to ask meaningful questions about the world around them. I also want them to value their own ideas and opinions as well as the perspectives of their peers. I will do this by allowing my students to make decisions about their learning (topics discussed) and the type of assignments and assessments that they want to do so students have some autonomy. Autonomy gives students some responsibility and ownership in their learning which will improve their engagement and make learning more meaningful. I will also model how to ask meaningful questions by presenting essential questions and then ask them to reflect on their own opinions and then share their opinions with their peers.
My assignment policy will reflect my growth mindset atmosphere. Students will be able to revise assignments and assessments to their satisfaction. This will help them realize that they can always learn. By taking failure out of the equation students will not become as frustrated or disappointed when they struggle. If they preserve instead of shutting down they will experience the euphoria of understanding and learning challenging concepts, which is the intrinsic reward that will fuel their motivation to learn. This will build their self-confidence and resilience, which will power them to become life-long learners.
In conclusion, my guiding goals are to treat all students like the worthy, capable learners they are and to help students become respectful citizens within a community. I will achieve these goals through several means. One way is by getting to know my students as people and creating a safe learning environment that will promote self-confidence and engagement. This will be supported by my use of growth mindset, which will also increase self-confidence, learning, and achievement. I will also utilize cooperative group learning to foster interpersonal relationships. Even though cooperative group learning is important, it will not be my only teaching strategy. I will also allow for student autonomy through individualized, inquiry based learning and options in how student learning can be shown. This will help students to foster their own interests which will make learning more meaningful and interesting. Lastly, my classroom management style will be mostly humanitarian and will allow students to revise their work. This will teach students that failure is not a label, but an opportunity to learn and improve.